Challenge to all Trout Camps

[krayfish2]

I think PA got to were it is today with the rampant harmful effects of hatchery trout because the fisheries science of why we should not stock over WILD trout was not shared with people.

Fixed your post. 😁

 

[Stenonema]

Explain what it is you're trying to accomplish.

To change the temperature and learn. I don't want to dance with you on our differences.

 

[JeffP]

One thing that's severely lacking in PA is actual documented surveys on species composition. PFBC is aware of this, as it was one of the main components of the most recent trout management plan.

I hear a lot of anecdotal reports from anglers, and I'm guilty of perceiving shifts in species biomass based on angling too. There may be cases where the shift is so obvious that it's a correct assumption that something has happened based on angling experiences. In other cases, maybe our rose-colored glasses looking back through time, are a bit deceiving. Regardless, there is a significant difference between historical survey data and angler recollection. Things like "well, brown trout and brook trout are both in the stream and have been my entire life" doesn't mean that everything is fine. I'm not suggesting that's what you're saying here, but I've heard that exact line used as "justification" that brown trout and brook trout "coexist."

In the one study Fishsticks has posted (I don't recall which one), the researchers theorized that a few bad years of recruitment (or maybe even one) can tip the balance to where the species can't recover, and the other takes over. Once they're gone, or reduced significantly enough, it's tough or impossible for them to come back on their own without help. A severe flood at the wrong time, a bad drought, ice, etc. etc. etc. that might nearly wipe out a cohort or two could diminish populations to so low of a level that they can't recover in a marginal stream.

To really understand what might have happened in Segloch, someone should have been monitoring species composition. Without that, it's just a WAG.

I think you are probably right about the few bad years theory. We do need more research. There are just so many variables.

 

[Stenonema]

Explain what it is you're trying to accomplish.

I am learning how hard it is to have a positive conversation.
I thought it would be nice to start with common ground instead of differences.
I want a positive conversation. I have to believe it is possible.

 

[bhruz]

So in some watersheds where invasive trout are mostly stocked I think you could say like you did that we can all focus against stocked trout regardless of the reason and native fish can come out on top.

An example would be the section of restored habitat for brook trout in shavers fork WV where stocking was ceased and that addressed the majority of invasive species found at least in the immediate study area from what I understand.

Can you share which part of Shavers fork in WV it is? Thanks

 

[Fish Sticks]

Can you share which part of Shavers fork in WV it is? Thanks

“We provide an assessment of habitat use by native brook and non-native brown and rainbow trout within the upper Shavers Fork—a restored Appalachian large-river system that contains one of only a few documented networked and genetically mixed brook trout metapopulations (Aunins et al. 2015).”

here is the whole study if your interested, the outcome is bot surprising but important to note

No pay wall

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/rec.12925

 

[silverfox]

I am learning how hard it is to have a positive conversation.
I thought it would be nice to start with common ground instead of differences.
I want a positive conversation. I have to believe it is possible.

Let me rephrase this. In order for anyone, myself included, to speak about what the common ground is between these perceived "camps," I think it's important to understand what it is you're suggesting. Your initial post was all about different camps and differences and negativity, and division. So I'm not sure what your proposal is here that we're supposed to find common ground on.

Define what it is you hope to accomplish. Explain your mission.

 

[Fish Sticks]

I think you are probably right about the few bad years theory. We do need more research. There are just so many variables.

Yea its really hard to say because changes that result in species shifts can play out over a century or longer and then you have the wild swings of recruitment/natural disasters, man made disturbances place on top. Its like the difference of looking at the s and p 500 index fund over 5 days and 10 years and trying to surmise which of the myriad of factors drove the buss. You need alot of data and you can’t just look at it you have to control for known variables and then observe any unexpected outcomes/relationships to look for unknown variables.

I will say obvious things to point out about hammer creek is we know temp is not the issue. There is a lot of really good large large thermal refuge. It has over 10 tribs that either are forested with visible gravel or come straight out of the earth(one single one is like half the size of the letort) with little to no sediment additions. And as i have mentioned before there is data brook trout actually do very well with a small gravel/sediment to a point if the upwelling rate is sufficient. How many pond spawning browns and rainbows do we see in the northeast? Not many. How many brook trout? Alot more. Ponds have more fine sediment. This study by bob carline shows with the right upwelling rate 45% of their spawning sediment can be less than 2mm! Fascinating and counter to the urban legends passed around the fishing community.

Features of Successful Spawning Site Development for Brook Trout in Wisconsin Ponds

Lack of spawning areas limits standing crops of brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) in many small, spring-fed ponds in northern Wisconsin. A new method for developing spawning areas includes measu...

www.tandfonline.com

 

[Stenonema]

Let me rephrase this. In order for anyone, myself included, to speak about what the common ground is between these perceived "camps," I think it's important to understand what it is you're suggesting. Your initial post was all about different camps and differences and negativity, and division. So I'm not sure what your proposal is here that we're supposed to find common ground on.

Define what it is you hope to accomplish. Explain your mission.

To challenge as it reads.

The Challenge: With your comments speak to what is common amongst the Wild Trout Camp and the Native Brook Trout Camp.

Rule: No negativity

 

[Fish Sticks]

Segloch there is brown trout stocking i believe down in middle creek so people are putting in an invasive species dump in every year capable of decimating brook trout populations through predation. That’s not helping.

So what ever those brook trout have to deal with from the segloch itself they have a renewed invasion launched every year as a result of human charity to brown trout and increasing the odds of a brown trout take over and brook trout extirpation completely separate from what ever they have to face in the stream.

Also, we know a low number of individual brook trout decreases genetic diversity and therefore adaptive potential because useful adaptation genes or gene complexes are lost to a process called genetic drift. So if browns decrease their numbers your risking that process. You pair that with the fact that the invasive trout species reduce gene flow of brook trout like a bad culvert and you can see how invasive species can impair brook trout adapting to problems with the actual stream or environment.

Essentially there are many brook trout populations in Pa that have survived all of man kinds evils somehow on the landscape and could survive in the streams their in, even thrive in some cases probably, but instead of just having to worry about the stream they are being eaten in massive quantities , pushed out of thermal refuge during the summer, having their redds excavated by browntrout(i never see people at fly shops tell the brown trout not to tread on the redds), gene flow disrupted by invasive living barriers, and confined to headwater stretches where there is little food to wait for a drought dry stream bed.

Invasive trout is a total (bad) game changer and deal breaker when the stream isnt in alot of cases .

I can’t say stream by stream(hammer segloch ect) where what specifc stream factors are in play on a case by case basis as we mentioned but this is what the research tells us is happening on a large scale in addition to the stream processes brook trout must deal with.

 

[silverfox]

To challenge as it reads.

The Challenge: With your comments speak to what is common amongst the Wild Trout Camp and the Native Brook Trout Camp.

Rule: No negativity

What is this “wild trout camp?” Brook trout are wild trout. Or are we not really talking about “wild trout?” You’ll need to clarify what or who this “camp” is.

 

[TimMurphy]

There have always been different camps concerning interests in Pennsylvania's trout management. I have noticed that the different camps first speak to what divides them. These differences define the walls that separate them. The PFBC needs all the camps to buy licenses. The PFBC becomes the voice of the anglers. The more the voice crosses camps the more unified they become. The more unified our voices the better our chances of achieving change. Communication is the key to breaking down the walls.
A big problem I have noticed is that we start every conversation by speaking first to what divides us.
Our wild trout resources deserve better. With urgency we should search all angles for their benefit.

The Challenge: With your comments speak to what is common amongst the Wild Trout Camp and the Native Brook Trout Camp.
Rule: No negativity

Trout

 

[Stenonema]

What is this “wild trout camp?” Brook trout are wild trout. Or are we not really talking about “wild trout?” You’ll need to clarify what or who this “camp” is.

Your asking me to define the differences. The point I was making is that is where we start. I see that as a problem. What do you and I have in common. You know me, we have talked.

 

[Oregon_OwlII]

I think I saw a Fish Commission slide once that an estimated 95% of all streams and rivers in the state were occupied by brook trout at the time of the first arrival of Europeans. A few of the larger rivers hosted warm water and anadromous species. I think we can all agree that a restoration to the original conditions of clean coldwater habitat is necessary for the benefit of our coldwater species. That would be a necessary precondition for the restoration of brook trout and our other native species (sculpins, darters, etc. That might take 100 years if there was concerted effort starting immediately.

Doing so would not eliminate non-native species like browns or rainbows. As someone pointed out, it might increase some non-natives. If the goal is restoration of all natives (and that is the camp we must ultimately belong if we agree that brookies, darters, and sculpins, etc. all deserve their native range returned), then the next thing we must all agree to is scientific methods to minimize the reproduction of non-natives (i.e genetic research that leads to the prevention reproduction of non-natives, This would be no easy task and might take 50-100 years of parallel development. It is the only way that brook trout could regain their ecological niche.

Having stated the above, I therefore would not halt the restoration of our waterways just because it might result in an increase in non-natives. The cart must follow the horse. Create conditions first, then apply science as it develops to prevent non-natives from reproducing. I can't see any other path forward. Most of us will have bought the farm before this is all over, but a unified vision of the habitat most conducive to our coldwater natives is, I think, where we need to be headed.

 

[krayfish2]

Wild trout camp = supports wild trout populations regardless of species and protection for those wild fisheries.



Brook trout camp = support of native brook trout and only interested in brook trout restoration to all historically inhabited waters



That's how I'm reading what Eric is saying but I could be wrong.

 

[Swattie87]

There are many camps scattered all over PA that remain in favor of traditional stocked Trout angling.

They far outnumber both of the camps in this thread.

If we’re talking “camps”. 🤯

 

[troutbert]

One thing that's severely lacking in PA is actual documented surveys on species composition. PFBC is aware of this, as it was one of the main components of the most recent trout management plan.

Operation Future surveys began in the 1970s, so they have info going back at least that far for a large number of streams. I think in the 1970s that they surveyed all of the stream mileage that was stocked at that time. These reports are broken down by species.

Before the 1970s the amount of trout stream survey info is more limited, but it's not zero. Dr. Cooper at Penn State did some surveys, and there was a well known survey of Kettle Creek and tribs in the 1940s.

 

[McSneek]

Wild trout camp = supports wild trout populations regardless of species and protection for those wild fisheries.



Brook trout camp = support of native brook trout and only interested in brook trout restoration to all historically inhabited waters



That's how I'm reading what Eric is saying but I could be wrong.

You’re right. It’s really not that hard to understand what the OP is after.

 

[Fish Sticks]

I think Oregon Owl is right that we don’t want to just stop further loss of native brook trout and other fish but that the goal is to recover them in some areas we have lost them as well. And its accurate to say a large part of that is getting streams reforested, improving ground water discharge/baseflow, and having suitable in-stream habitat.

The only problem we are faced with is where you already have both brook trout and brown trout we know we have a serious risk of invasive trout species using restoration to expand and rid streams of brook trout.

Dr. Brock Huntsman-
“Collectively these results indicate that habitat restoration was only beneficial for native brook trout when non-native trout were absent from the restored sampling area. Proactive approaches to restoration will be integral for supporting resilient ecosystems in response to future anthropogenic threats (e.g. climate change), and we have shown that such actions will only be successful if non-native competitors do not also benefit from the restoration actions.”

So I would agree with what you said Oregon owl that we need to do restoration but as Dr. Brock Huntsman said in above quote the approaches need in regards to accounting for invasive species where we do chose to manage for brook trout need to be “pro-active” for invasive species, not reactive after we have let them over run native brook trout.

As you mentioned, once currently investigational genetic control methods(supermales, gene cassetes, CRISPR) are perfected it might seem like you could then go back and do a lot of removal of invasive trout and reintroduction later on of native brook trout to all the great habitat you restored. However, the reason that would not work is conservation genetics. By allowing the invasive species to further severely contract the range of the native brook trout you are losing genes on the landscape and genetic diversity which gives them the ability to adapt/evolve their genes to climate change and other stressors collectively. Essentially if you take the adaptation out of the fish for that time period what you reintroduce will be so genetically limited/homogeneous that adaptation will not continue at a fast enough rate to prepare the fish for climate change and other things. Think of each gene as a tool for survival. Think of each population of brook trout as a unique reservoir of different tools/genes in the state. Genetic diversity or diversity of tools makes a more adaptable brook trout. If we just have a hammer left in 100 years we can’t rebuild their populations if that makes any sense.

The good news is we have things we can do to be proactive like Dr. Huntsman suggested in the above study of shavers fork of the cheat.

We can stop stocking invasive trout species and from what I heard this has already helped those brook trout better use the habitat studied previously on the shavers fork of the cheat and am waiting to see a publication though.

We can avoid the stream features that observational data tells us favors displacement of brook trout for invasive trout(lunker bunkers, deep overhanging cover ect). Like I said to troutbert, its just observational data but its the best we have to go on and there are alot of examples of the harms of these things out there. Restoring wetlands/ground water function may be the best option we have for now and avoid all the instream structures where both species exist and invasives cannot be removed.

We have anglers- less trout less competition to brook trout. We may not have to eliminate invasive trout in many cases according to Dr. Phaedra Budy. Sometimes a rebalancing may allow the native species to outcompete as we see in the savage with the micro pop of browns that can never take hold. If we stop stocking invasive trout and let white truck anglers do the work for us on invasive trout species. This is what they are doing in Lee’s ferry for invasive brown trout where endangered razorback suckers and humpback chubs are at risk from the invasive brown trout.

We also can do removal projects today in very small streams above a barrier. We know it has worked all over the country and saving golden trout, some rare cutthroats, and apache trout/ Gila trout ect.

So we do not have to wait 100 years to oair these things with our restorations. We can do alot today and brook trout and their genetic ability to adapt depend on us doing it.

 

[Fish Sticks]

You’re right. It’s really not that hard to understand what the OP is after.

I would say the difference between wild invasive and native is clear as you point out. Whats unclear is are these “camps” fishing or something else.

Because one could consider me in the “wild trout camp” i suppose because I fish for wild invasive and wild native trout.

But in reality if we are talking about conservation there can be no conservation of an invasive species by definition and in practice so the only “camps” would be the “conservation camp” and “or against conservation camp”. There is no “Eastern Brown Trout Venture” scientists know that promoting and protecting an invasive species means trashing our state fish.

So from a conservation perspective its just yes or no. There are no “different kinds” or different camps”. You either protect biodiversity, functioning ecosystems on planet earth, and individual species from going extinct or you don’t.

Thats the part about this people don’t get alot of the time